I took my 11 year old fishing at the Elk this morning. The last time he went with me was February of 2007, when he promptly took a bath in 30 degree weather. This time was MUCH better.

The state apparently stocked yesterday, and my son caught his first trout ever. We arrived about 7:30 and I rigged up a size 18 olive hares ear. He has some experience casting in the back yard, so he cast the fly himself. While I was tying on my own fly he caught a nice 10-11" rainbow. I tied on a size 18 BWO and had moderate success with that, mostly 5" browns newly stocked.

Soon, it became apparent that most fish were hitting my son's strike indicator. So, I tied on a size 12 caddis and we started lighting them up while taking turns with one rod. We caught and released 20 fish in 3 hours. All remaining fish were newly stocked browns from 5 to 8". For about 30 min, we were getting a strike on every cast.

We moved down river looking for something of bigger size. We wound up at the turn hole and fished san juan worms with moderate success. We caught 7 more rainbows, the largest being around 10". I saw one rainbow that probably went 18" and around 2 pounds, but he wasn't interested. I also saw a big bass (probably 3-4 pounds) cruising around in the still water on the left side of the sand bar.

My son had an incredible time and has already reminded me that he outfished me 14 to 13.